


Book VI - Lovers

by niawen



Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [1]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/M, Light Whump, Mutual Pining, Novelization, Other, Shippy Gen, Whump, source-appropriate violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27900460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niawen/pseuds/niawen
Summary: Erin meets a stranger who really isn't all that strange, and Muriel meets someone he doesn't know as well as he thought.
Relationships: Apprentice/Muriel (The Arcana)
Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043058
Kudos: 3





	1. Hate a Goat

**Author's Note:**

> Recently, I've migrated many of these writings as individual fics in a series to make life easier for readers. Thank you for checking it out!

Erin burst out of the underbrush in a flurry of snapped twigs and disturbed leaves, sprinting haphazardly after the loping wolf ahead of her. Its sable fur made it hard to spot in the gloom of the forest at night and she had to strain to keep tabs on it. But something was wrong, the wolf was covered in blood- mostly from some other entity as far as she could tell... its gait was perfectly strong and confident.

Her lungs were on fire by the time she heard the soft padding of the wolf slow to a trot. Shielding her face with her arm, she plunged through the next wall of vegetation and into a clearing, frantically trying to take in what was happening-- so many things were all demanding her attention at once.

The wolf was approaching two large shapes- a dead stag or something but with massive wings that appeared to be wilting somehow and something larger hunched over it. There was blood everywhere- sprayed across tree trunks and leaves and the smell of it was thick in the forest’s petrichor. There was an immediate instinct that her skills with healing may be necessary and she moved forward with purpose, the other bulky figure finally reacting with a start to the sound of her approaching footfalls.

It rose… and kept rising. Erin’s pace slowed to an awkward stop as the towering figure remained firmly between her and the stag. It seemed to be… just a person. But Erin had never met anyone as big before. They were almost two full head-and-shoulders over her, maybe twice again as wide... A moment of reactionary defensiveness made the gigantic form twitch protectively and the hood of what turned out to be a massive, half-rotted cloak fell, revealing the pale-with-pain face of a man. His expression was dark- irritation and pain and more- but, confusingly, it darkened even more as his eyes settled on her and something like recognition formed there… but that couldn’t possibly be the case...

“What are _you_ doing here?” he demanded in a rough growl, clumsily pushing some sweaty hair out of his face. It wasn’t just sweat, Erin realized with a sudden clenching in her chest. It was blood. His face was covered in it, his forehead gashed open and his jaw set with tension.

“Hey, you’re hurt!” Erin’s impulse to heal overrode her precaution- true, she had no idea what he was going on here, what the huge animal dead on the ground behind him was, this man’s relationship to it, or anything regarding the wolf watching the exchange with concern for that matter… she didn’t couldn’t even say with certainty that the man wasn’t the reason the animal behind him was dead. But he was hurt and that came first. She lurched forward with her palms up, pushing a healing spell into them before she’d even reached him.

His reaction stopped her in her tracks faster than the binding spell Asra had been trying to teach her for the last month. He flinched back violently, shrinking slightly and pulling his arms up defensively (to cover himself and keep her away, not defend or attack. Weird.) and his eyes were wide with what was unmistakably fear.

Erin felt confusion so powerfully then that she actually looked over her shoulder to see if there was something huge and vicious lurking behind her. There wasn’t. When she turned back to the stranger, they watched each other for a moment with total bewilderment- mixed with terror for his part and complete noncomprehension on hers. She lifted her hands a little higher so he could see the warm glow they were giving off. “I can heal. You’re wounded.”she said, trying to speak calmly and clearly. This seemed like simple math to Erin.

She came in again and he flinched back out of her reach just as violently as before. “Don’t touch me!” he spat, his eyes narrowed furiously and his lips curled into a defensive snarl.

“Okay! Okay!” she acquiesced, fighting down her alarm at the vehemence, holding her hands up higher in surrender. It was like approaching a wild animal and she did absolutely not want to set this wall of a man off while she was alone in the dark woods. “I found… your wolf. She led me here…” Conversation seemed unlikely, given his reaction to her thus far but she needed information and he still needed to be healed… perhaps if she could just get through that she meant no harm.

For an instant his eyes flickered to the huge wolf. “Inanna…” he growled under his breath, sounding almost chastising… as though the wolf had done something specifically undesired… Erin’s brow furrowed. That seemed like a lot to ask from a normal wolf, but then she’d never been this close to one in her whole life. The wolf- Inanna- simply stared back with just the slightest hint of insolent challenge, unruffled by the man’s angry growling and her face seemed to very plainly say _you’re joking, right?_

Erin, impatient at the sight of so much blood and satisfied that she wasn’t about to be killed (the wolf and the man seemed to be not a threat to her, afterall), took a half step closer but immediately froze again as he growled at her. The intimidation tactic was made less effective by his sudden flinch and jagged little gasp of pain. He pressed one of his hands to his bare side for a second, his brow furrowing and his body tense. It came away coated in fresh blood. “Look, I promise I’m not gonna hurt you,” Erin said hastily, trying to appeal to reason and still holding her hands up in what she hoped was a placating gesture. “But you’re bleeding everywhere. If you let me help I can at least staunch it until you can get somewhere safer.”

Looking intensely irritated by this, he finally let out the tense breath he’d been holding and grunted something that sounded like a grudging “Fine,” under his breath.

Erin’s eyebrows rose in silent question for a second, taking one step towards him, then another. When she wasn’t immediately snarled at she closed in on him, pulling aside his tattered cloak before he could stop her and wincing at the livid crimson smear and smell of fresh blood. Her palms found the wound in his side and pressed- she could feel the tense ripple through him like a thunderstorm. He went totally rigid beneath her touch and she could see his fists clench tightly as though struggling not to attack...

Actually, he was leaning to the side, his feet braced unsteadily… he was preparing to run, not attack. She frowned even as she worked the spell over him. Erin knew that at her height and given the general roundness of her body and features, she didn’t cut a particularly intimidating figure. She also knew that while magic could scare the everloving hell out of the right people this man had an aura, had magic of his own, and she was beginning to suspect the wolf was a familiar… What then, she wondered distractedly, could possibly justify the defensiveness? And the desire to flee, of all things...

Shaking her head to regain her concentration, she returned her attention to the deep gouges at his side and pushed the spell into him, willing the flesh there to knit even as sweat sprang to her brow.

Inanna suddenly rose to her feet, hackles raised before- not even a full instant later- an unholy howl rent through the quiet woods. The man jerked out of her touch and wrenched his cloak back over his body, hiding his wounded side and rising to his full (impressive) height. “We need to move,” he hissed quietly, leaning to escape Erin’s hands while the light flickered and died around them.

“Your side, though-” she protested, not having been permitted enough time to stop the bleeding and, if not permitted to complete the spell, would have to do it all over again from the beginning..

“ _Now._ ” he snarled, with a bit more urgency as he scanned the shrubline, and, with the wolf moving quickly ahead he began to stagger forward. “Hurry,” he shot back when he wasn’t immediately obliged, turning to cast her a hesitant once-over, taking in her mismatched eyes and slightly stubborn expression there. “It's not safe here.”

Reluctantly, finally, she nodded grimly and followed through the undergrowth. They tailed Inanna as quickly as they could, who seemed to be picking a deliberately difficult path to follow. They moved in silence, at least apart from Erin’s wheezing and the bloody man’s labored panting. He stumbled once and was forced to take a knee and, grimacing slightly at his weight and the almost comical height difference, Erin forced her way under his arm and helped stabilize him. He jerked disagreeably and his whole body seemed repelled by the contact… but he didn’t argue, thankfully, and she tried to focus on plodding after Inanna. Erin had just opened her mouth to ask where they were going when a snapping branch to her left made her jump. To her surprise, the big figure bodily stepped in front of her, the muscular arm around her pulling her back, shielding her from whatever was slowly emerging from the bushes. Inanna let out a feral snarl that raised the fine hairs at the back of Erin’s neck.

Or maybe it was the _thing_ emerging from the trees. Tall, crowned with twisted horns and punctuated by sharp, glowing embers for eyes… it was monstrous and not entirely solid, especially around the edges. Fear crawled up her whole body at the sight. She saw the attack before it happened, knew instantly that those wicked claws were going to plunge straight into the man’s body- which he had positioned to shield her..

Without stopping to consider the potential outcomes, Erin darted forward and put her arms out in front of her. Her barrier spells were shit, she couldn’t deny it. They wobbled and collapsed like dough left out to rise too long. But anything was better than letting a stranger get eviscerated for her. There was an instant where her eyes locked with the apparition’s and she felt a surge of cold terror rising in her like bile. She was nothing if not stubborn to a fault, however, and as she reaffirmed her stance by stamping her foot down against the soft soil, a barrier dome erupted around them with a hollow blast.

For a second, it was colorless and floppy and Erin felt her guts give a nauseous lurch at the failure. Digging deep she set her brow and _pushed_ as hard as she could, funneling more power into it as the apparition let out another visceral noise and charged. There was a resonant noise like bubbles under deep water and- from the earth up- the barrier shivered. She shoved again and the force of the spell flowing out of her palms intensified several fold, sending her staggering back a pace, straight into the towering, bloody, stranger.

He was as solid as a mountain and she stopped worrying about saying upright. There was another resonant hum and a burst of light- the barrier dome hardened and was streaked with shimmering blue and green like a wall of solid ice. The dim scene of the forest was distorted and reflected in the sharp geometric lines that covered the magical surface like the facets of a gem. The man gave a soft curse and Inanna’s head was raised now but there was no time to turn and look at them. The instant had dragged on long enough and the monstrous shape outside was already bearing down on them..

This needed her full concentration.

The goat-like monstrosity hit the solid surface and Erin pulled her hands back at the same instant. The bubble popped and the explosive force sent whatever had attacked them flying back into the woods with a furious scream. Erin panted heavily, covered in sweat and shaking slightly, once again bathed in the gloom of the night without her magic to illuminate it.

She had been working with Asra on that spell for most of the last three years, to varying degrees of failure. That was the first barrier she’d ever produced that was so solid, so… impactful. Even Asra’s barriers were more like liquid smoke and malleable than that solid wall she had just conjured from nothing. Her head spun and she staggered slightly, putting a hand to her clammy forehead dazedly.

A huge hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her, gently but with an unmasked urgency. “This way. Hurry.”

Still shellshocked and a little too dazed to say anything of value, she nodded and followed, the stitch in her side painfully making itself known.


	2. Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which one of them is more stubborn? Muriel hates human contact too much to let a near-stranger take care of his bloody wounds, but Erin's also not about to just let him make more of a mess out of himself.

Erin was pretty sure she’s never run as fast or for as long in her life. Maybe she was cheating because she only remembered the last three years but the point still stood.

By the time the huge stranger dragged her pell-mell down the path to a rugged, stonework house built into an ancient tree’s root system, the stitch in her side was  _ killing _ her and her breaths were coming in short, shallow jags. He stumbled heavily again as they passed into the clearing, nearly falling to his knees with a grunt of pain as the hand not holding Erin’s clamped against the wound on his ribs. She couldn’t help but be impressed though, that even though he was so clearly in excruciating pain he was able to run more easily than her, considering she was in relatively perfect health. But Erin knew she was no runner and she was pretty sure it was obvious in her unflattering wheezes.

Wordlessly, she ducked down to get under his heavy arm. It was- again- glaringly obvious that he hated the contact, though whether it was from pain or something else, Erin didn’t rightly know. She can feel every ounce of his heavy, muscular body tense in dislike but he was still losing a worrying amount of blood and needed help. And they were  _ so _ close to relative safety.  _ And _ Erin really didn’t have any idea if that goat demon was still haunting their steps and really didn’t want to wait around and find out.

Without slowing down, Erin roughly shouldered her way inside, trying not to bang the heavy body she was bracing against the stone doorframe. Inanna slunk in behind them and in a flurry of movement, Erin (as gently as she could in her rush) helped the bloody man sit on the floor and turned and slammed the door shut. And then, because she was still wheezing, she turned to push her back against the heavy, old wood and slid down it in a heap. She cursed under her breath and wiped away the sweat rolling uncomfortably down her face with her sleeve, still trying to get her breathing under control. Nearbyish, the bloody man gingerly braced himself upright with one thickly muscled arm while he shifted back to lean against the wall.

For a long moment, neither of them moved or spoke. Even Inanna was subdued, coming to the man’s side to press her nose into his free hand in a show of comfort.

Erin watched as he tipped his head back, breathing heavily and gritting his teeth as his sweaty hair smeared the blood steadily oozing out of the gash on his head. She suspected that maybe the cut wasn’t as gruesome as it appeared but with the blood threading through his hair and smearing over most of his face and throat, she wouldn’t be able to tell until she cleaned him up a little. She also noticed that the tattered black cloak was once again wrapped tightly around him, concealing the blood smears on the rest of his body she’d caught a glimpse of before. With that particular thought to spur her onward and a groan of effort, she got back up to her feet.

The house was devoid of anything ostentatious but there was a fireplace with low-burning embers still in the grate and other essentials that she deemed would need, now that she’d fully shifted to medic mode. She walked over to the fireplace and grabbed one of the split logs neatly stacked to the side and tossed it on the embers. With a quick gesture a waft of bluish fire filled the hearth but then it died and cooled to a low, very normal orange, spilling light and warmth into the hut.

She took a second to rummage in her bag… She wasn’t prepared for intensive healing, all of her most helpful supplies and strongest reagents were back at the shop. Which meant that she’d have to do at least some of this manually. She made a beeline for the stranger and had already hunched to grab his arm when he recoiled from her and the unexpected movement paired with the violence of it startled a small gasp out of her and she pulled back.

They watched each other for a second, breathing hard and staying perfectly still. Erin did not understand the reaction at all, she’d already proven she could heal, hadn’t she? “I have to heal you, you’re losing kind of a lot of blood and-”

He got to his feet suddenly, the movement quick and efficient even if he had to brace one large hand against the wall to steady himself. He glowered down at her, his lips pulled into a tight frown and his eyes ice cold. She hadn’t explicitly forgotten per se, but she was forcefully reminded that- whoever he was- he was absolutely huge and towered over her. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled viciously, glaring down at her with utmost contempt and Erin felt something cold wash over her at the display… it wasn’t outright fear but if he was deliberately trying to intimidate her… it was working. She mouthed stupidly but seemed reluctant to close the distance again and he moved past her closer to the fire. “Get out,” he growled, not turning to look at her.

Erin and (to her surprise) Inanna let out the same argumentative noise. “You’re bleeding everywhere,” she tried to appeal to his sense, though she did not move to touch him again. “You saw me start to heal you in the woods, remember? I can help-”

He turned and snarled at her again, the same ice cold look in his tight, pallid face. Smeared with blood, it was actually quite intimidating and Erin felt an uncharacteristic desire to back off. “I can do it myself,” he growled, first at Erin then at Inanna. “You’ll be safe enough if you stick to the path, Lucio can’t interact with the protective charms. Now  _ get out _ ,” he said, with a vicious amount of emphasis. “And don’t come back.”

“Lucio? That… you’re not suggesting that  _ thing _ was Count Lucio, are you? He was murdered three years ago-?” Erin was distracted from his demands that she leave by this and stared in stupified shock at him for few long seconds. “That wasn’t… I mean I’m not an expert but I don’t think that was a ghost we saw… And if it was, why was it out here and not in the palace where he was killed-?”

“I don’t know,” the man grumbled, now seemingly extra-annoyed that he’d accidentally started a conversation. “Ask him on your way back to town-” He put his hand on the table to brace himself after moving a few paces away but then stumbled and was on the floor again a second later, grunting in pain and breathing hard.

At that, Erin threw caution to the wind and reacted on instinct. She darted over to him and grabbed his thick bicep, steadying him before he could smack his skull on the heavy table. He turned to look at her with such fury for her continued audacity but she refused to acknowledge it for the time being and simply helped him sit. The warmth from the fire reached them here and she let go as soon as she felt it was safe to, though she refused to put much distance between them. “You’re a mess,” she said firmly, steeling her nerves to look back into his mutinous face. She was surprised to see something like… mistrust and fear there, having expected only that cold anger. “I’m a pretty good healer. Just let me help and you’ll be patched up in just a couple minutes, okay?”

“I can do it myself,” he grumbled irritably, looking away, though the anger seemed to be fizzling out quickly.

“I can do it faster and I can probably do a better job since, you know, I can see both of your wounds and use both hands at once. You’re… I mean really, you’re a mess and I don’t want to leave without knowing you’re okay.”

“Why?” 

Erin paused abruptly and stared at him for a second. His eyes were fixed on her in that same combination of mistrust and dislike but they loomed brightly in his bloody face.

“Why what?”

“Why would you care?” he challenged, “You don’t know me, you don’t even know if I’m a danger to you or not.”

Erin wrinkled her brow and made a face. “Yeah, I don’t,” she agreed impatiently. “But I do know that you need help and I can give it. I can worry about the rest later.”

He seemed to come back to himself and eyed her dispassionately before he snorted and looked away. “Reckless idiot.”

She frowned at that and his general noncompliance and finally decided not to bother with further arguments, no matter how well reasoned they were. “Take off your cloak,” she instructed brusquely, getting up to utilize a bucket and clean rag she found near the kitchenette.

The stranger bristled somewhat at that. “Why would I do that?”

Erin filled the kettle next to the fire with water and set it on the flame, shaking her head somewhat irritably. “Because I can’t deal with your side if you don’t let me see it. Plus you’ve got a ton of blood all over you, I need to check for other wounds.”

He pursed his lips tightly, displeased that she was stubbornly going ahead with her intended ministrations and didn’t move for several long seconds while she positioned the pail and rag closer. When she gave him a stern, somewhat irritable look he shrank into himself slightly, feeling a rising tide of discomfort at not being able to rid himself of her.

“Get rid of it, please,” she said again, though her tone was no-nonsense. To her private delight (she tried not to show it since she was making some miniscule progress with him) he glared rebelliously at her for a second before finally pulling the stained fabric from his shoulders and dropped it next to him with a noise of frustration. She nodded, satisfied, and he looked away. She couldn’t be sure if it was a fever setting in but he also seemed to grow deeply red at that and she resolved to be sure and check that as well. After a minute the kettle was hot enough and she poured the steaming hot water into the bucket.

It was hot but not scalding and she pulled off her own cloak and pushed up her sleeves, soaking the rag and wringing it out. His eyes flickered to the tattoo covering her right arm and she gave him a friendly smirk. “Got it from a Karnassian sailor last summer,” she said. “Was in the mood to do something a little adventurous, you know?”

“No,” he answered flatly, hunching in on himself protectively. Erin found the motion odd on someone so physically imposing but she supposed he was in a significant amount of pain. She pursed her lips for a second and then couldn’t find any reason to delay longer. Slowly, she shuffled a little closer on her knees and held up the rag. For a second, it seemed like he was going to tolerate her coming in close enough to touch him but then he flinched away and growled lowly. “I thought you were going to use magic to make this faster,” he grumbled, still sitting stiff as a board and looking incredibly put off by her proximity, which was still a polite distance away.

Erin tried to take a calming breath and not rise to the bait. He was being this way for a reason, she reminded herself, she just didn’t know what it was. She made no sudden movements and made sure he could see both of her hands. “You’d be surprised how magically complicated it would be to siphon all this blood and dirt away into thin air. It will still be quick this way, okay? But you’re a mess, you’re in pain, there might be more damage than you’re aware of-”

“Give it,” he snapped, reaching for the rag even as she made a petulant face and pulled it back. “I’ll do it myself-” But as his arm made its full extension he gasped in pain and folded in on himself for a second, breathing hard.

Frustrated, Erin clicked her tongue. “Sit still, damn you,” said with an exasperated huff. “I’ve got it, just-” he made to move again and while her impatience notched a little higher, she almost laughed at how incredibly stubborn he was. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Okay? I’m trying to help.” To her mild surprise he seemed to finally lose steam at that, though there was still something mutinous in his expression, that was steadily growing redder even as he looked away.

Not wanting to push him for an explicit invitation when he so badly wanted to toss her out, she came in close and slowly raised the damp rag to his forehead, hesitated a second, then gently began to dab up the mess. He was solid like a boulder under her ministrations, she noted, every single muscle in his body wound to absolute tension. At first she thought it was with anger but she couldn’t help but notice that his eyes alternatively fixed themselves on the door and the single window on the other wall as though calculating escape chances. She would have been content to work in silence but his tenseness was getting to her and she did want to placate his irritation as she  _ was _ a mostly uninvited guest in what she now assumed was his house.

The gash on his forehead wasn’t tremendously deep but it was ragged and was bleeding a metric fuckton. Every time she passed the soft cloth over his skin it came away stained red. “Cuts to the skull like this bleed like crazy… but this one’s definitely not as bad as it looked…” She was talking in part to be transparent with him and in part to keep him from fleeing. He was resolutely staring at the far wall now, ignoring the warmth of her as she hovered inches from his bare torso. The redness to his face was only growing more pronounced and- as far as Erin could see, there was really no reason for that at all? She wondered if he was that uncomfortable with the touch…

She passed the rag over his blood-caked eye, and then down his high cheekbone (scarred), and scrubbed some of the half dried, half congealed mess off his sharp jaw. (Also scarred). The mark on his jaw was a blade scar for certain, she realized, but it was jagged and thick as though it hadn’t gotten any kind of attention after it had been inflicted… She wondered what kind of circumstances would have left that… 

She almost jumped out of her skin when she realized he was staring right at her face and she hastily moved on while he looked away uncomfortably. But the more she progressed, the more trouble she had in not staring. The mess on his throat was easy to clean up until she hit the heavy iron collar there. It was huge and its weight wasn’t insignificant and she could sense traces of magic on it… there was still a bit of chain attached to it, too, and you’d have to be a special kind of thick to not notice it was clearly made to match the heavy iron shackles around his wrists, each still with a few cold links remaining.

His collar and chest were mostly clear of too much blood though it was impossible for her to keep her racing thoughts to herself as everything she was looking at started to paint a disturbing picture. Each pass of the rag only made her frown tighter. He was scarred to hell and back- old wounds, too. Actually he didn’t have many fresh scars on his body, from what she could see, and while Erin wasn’t skilled enough to guess the relative age of the old ones, she was well versed enough to know weapon scars when she saw them. Not all of them were, of course, but the lines on the back of his shoulder were from a gladius, there was a puncture wound on his right bicep from either a heavy bolt or a light spear (hard so say on such a large body) and double slashes across his heart had to have been left by a heavy blade, probably a two handed weapon of some kind, given the height and depth.

When she looked back to his face he was staring at her again, almost defiantly and she didn’t really understand where the fire in his expression was coming from. He almost looked as though he was defensively waiting for her to ask about them, challenging her to say what was on her mind. “You’ve… been through a lot. Haven’t you?” she asked mildly, not wanting to scare him away after all the work it took just getting him to trust her enough to sit still. “A lot of these look pretty bad.”

He seemed caught off guard by that, his expression loosening into one of mild confusion and… honestly he looked a little flustered. But he only pursed his lips and looked away again, obviously unwilling to talk about it. Erin couldn’t rightly argue with that either so she gave him a weak, apologetic grimace and continued mopping up blood until she had cleaned the gouges raking down his ribs. They were deep and ragged and while they didn’t look immediately life threatening, they did look incredibly painful.

“Do you… have a name you wanna give me?” she asked after a second, finally dropping the rag in the bloody wash water and preparing the spell that would knit his flesh back together. 

He frowned dubiously all of a sudden. “Why’s it matter,” he muttered flatly, looking away with a sudden moroseness that was hard to miss and felt out of place.

Erin made a face and almost wanted to laugh at how onerous he could be, even if he’d lost a lot of venom over the last while. “We ran into each other in the woods at night, ran from a demon ghost goat, and took shelter in your house. You don’t even want to know the name of the person you did all of that with?”

“I already know your name,” he huffed, and Erin looked up abruptly.

“You do? Then… I probably knew yours, at some point,” she said awkwardly, wiping a hand on her pant leg. “Sorry, I… everything before three years ago… it's just gone. I don’t remember anything.”

“I know that, too,” he mumbled, even as she regained herself enough to come in and lay both her hands over his side. “I… its…” he stammered for several long seconds, obviously fighting with himself before finally, with an air of defeat and lingering irritation: “Muriel.”

She was concentrating on pushing the spell into his flesh but she shook her head. The name didn’t ring a bell at all. “And you know mine…”

“Erin,” he said flatly, still refusing to look at her.

“Well,” she said with an obviously inflated amount of nonchalance, “we’re closer to even now, I guess.” She pulled back from his ribs and he bent awkwardly to examine her handiwork.

“Is it going to scar?” he asked slowly after a good minute of silence.

Erin took a look at it again. “So skin here does usually scar up pretty good since it’s not the most padded area of the body but I think they’ll be fairly small since I was able to get to them quickly.”

He seemed to be marginally satisfied with that, to her surprise and she decided to push her luck. “I take it you don’t like your scars?”

“Would you?” he returned quickly, bitterly. “They’re a reminder of something terrible. And they scare people.”

“They might be a reminder of something painful but to me, they’re just scars. Why would I be scared of them?” He seemed, for a second, to not have a salient comeback to this and after another second, had to concede that point.

Erin leaned a little bit closer to his skull, where the gash on his head was still angry red and sluggishly bleeding. She was aware that she was at kind of an invasive distance but that didn’t prepare her for the way he started and then actually blushed, turning away to stare at the wall again. Carefully, she brought her fingers to his head and felt the flesh seal up beneath her touch, and she quickly climbed to her feet and took a step back to admire her handiwork. “Not perfect, but not bad. See I told you… that…” 

She shook her head slightly as the room suddenly dipped, trying to blink it back to rightness. There was a swiftly-draining feeling in her and she knew quickly that she’d expended too much magic- the barrier, the fire, the healing spells… She wobbled, noting detachedly that he was asking something, asking if she was okay and she’d almost nodded in answer but the movement was too much for her and she collapsed limply.

Thoughts scattered, she didn’t say anything or protest when he reacted in a lightning quick movement, lurching forward awkwardly to catch her with two strong arms before she could smash her skull on the flagstone. Boneless and reeling, she collapsed sideways against his chest and she had a second to note that the warm flesh there felt refreshingly cool against her overheated face before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out.  
  
  



	3. Clouded but Clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muriel isn't sure what possessed him to give Erin myrrh but its starting to become apparent that she's pretty good at getting him to act a little uncharacteristically.

Muriel didn’t know what it meant at the time (or really now, actually) but something deep in his guts knew that she was different the moment he handed her that sachet of myrrh the morning after she had found him bloodied in the forest.

The spell had actually quavered around Erin for a few tense seconds beforehand and (at least until the Masquerade) he’d never seen anyone resist it like that.. She knew she should remember something, he saw it in her round, freckled face- a slow creeping panic artificially subdued by powerful magic… It made him feel guilty. It made him feel like maybe he was tampering with something he didn’t have a right to tamper with. 

Having agency over whether people remembered him or not had never been an ethical consideration of his- he’d earned it, after all, it was his boon and after the life he’d lived he was damn well entitled to it. But somehow… watching her face that morning, brows constricted tightly, mop of brown hair disheveled and hanging partially in her worried eyes, watching her fight back against the spell and then be forcibly overpowered by it made guilt prickle up his spine. 

They had met several times before this point and she had never resisted it, each meeting unremarkable as the spell wiped her mind clean of him… But that time, though, those few scant instants of her realizing she should know something, should recognize him, and then her anxious frustration giving way to an acceptance magically imposed on her kind of hurt to watch. Not to mention the particular complication of his gift left her suddenly coping with the disorienting scare of waking up in an unfamiliar place, alone and vulnerable with a monster of a man like him. 

Muriel _did not like that feeling one bit_. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered if he’d made the right choice in taking part of Asra’s ritual but that morning had been one of the more unsettling experiences with it he’d had in a long while. 

Of course, that was how she ended up with the myrrh. 

Spurred to do something-  _ anything-  _ about the painful transition from knowing something was wrong to...not… plain in her face, he had quickly snatched the pouch and thrust it at her without a word. 

Recognition and then shock had cascaded over her features almost immediately, bringing him some measure of relief from his sudden discomfort and something else that made heat rush to his face. He remembered the transition with almost perfect clarity. Her eyes wide and shocked- one a gray blue and the other green- locked onto his with some potent mix of anxiety and surprise and  _ relief _ , of all things, to recognize him… A look that he’d never seen in a near stranger before. 

The way she had desperately clutched that rough little mess of leather and herbs like it was something priceless, held it pressed to her chest in her shaking hands, her face a potent combination of anxiety and confusion that faded into panic-tinged-apologetic… It had only intensified that nagging little unpleasantness. She felt guilty because she forgot, even though he made her forget… And now he felt shame creeping up his face that he had caused her to worry so much, even if her reaction was unnecessary and unasked for.

“Muriel!” she gasped, still clutching the myrrh to her heart and watching him with wide, confused eyes. “What the hell? How…?”

He grunted and looked away, feeling distinctly as though she was already becoming a special case. He was usually extremely stingy with the myrrh. Out of self-protection, of course, but he didn’t like to see some unrelated bystander look so stressed because of him (indirectly or otherwise). 

Well, she wasn’t exactly some random bystander. She was Asra’s problem. His obsession or whatever you wanted to call it. He looked her over again and almost wanted to snort. She looked like a completely different person from four years ago. Her long, customary plait had been inexpertly shaved all the way down to her skull except for the unruly few inches of hair at the top of her skull, fluffy and sticking every which way. She looked like she’d done it herself with a dull knife too, if he was being honest. There was no make-up, no jewelry, no impeccably tailored clothing… There _was_ blue and black ink tattooed all up her right arm… And her magical talent (aside from that huge barrier from last night) didn’t seem to hold a candle to her past abilities. He hadn’t been close to her before but she barely resembled herself at all, now. She was a stranger a second time over...

He knew Asra was barely coping and he knew the magician had taken to long journeys to get away from his guilt. From her, and the constant reminder that he had struck a deal to revive a stranger. Muriel didn’t feel pity for many but he felt his guts give a sympathetic lurch for Asra and at the sight of her. He wondered if his friend had any luck in divulging the past to her… not likely, he supposed, given Asra’s general level of aloofness as of late and her insistence on calling him “master”.

When he could finally avoid her desperate question no longer, he sighed and tore his eyes away from her face, frowning thoughtfully. “There’s a spell. People forget me when they aren’t looking at me.”

She swore softly under her breath, still clutching the myrrh tightly and watching him. She swung her legs out of his bed and pulled a slight face as she was too short to reach the ground without ungracefully shimmying off it and her face darkened slightly as Muriel watched, also flushing in the dim morning light of the hut.

“The myrrh helps?” she pressed, coming just a bit closer. He could see that she was trying to respect the massive personal bubble he had (that frankly extended well beyond the walls of the hut but he guessed that there was nothing he could do about that just then).  He pursed his lips, the distinct feeling he was admitting vulnerability gnawed at his insides. “Yeah. Keep it, and you won’t forget again.”

To his immense discomfort, she smiled broadly and earnestly. “Oh thank god,” she breathed with relief. “I don’t want to forget you.”

Muriel bit the hook before he could stop himself- his instinct to self deprecate and his general non-comprehension about human interactions prompted it before he could think better of it. “Why?” he asked thickly, pulling a very skeptical face before he could help himself.

Erin’s cheeks were red but she tried to give him a confident smile and her tone was confident and casual- if a little transparently forced. “Um. So a handsome stranger saved me from a goat demon in the middle of the woods. Even after I expended my power you let me sleep in your bed and protected me until I could function again.” She stood up finally to her full height- her fluffy psuedo-mohawk barely reaching past his sternum, now that he got a proper look. God damn she was short.

“I owe you one, Muriel. And it’d be a lot harder to pay you back if I keep forgetting your face.”

“Don’t be stupid you don’t owe me anything,” he grunted with a surly roll of his shoulder, though his face went blotchy at the compliment. “You saved me. I didn’t do anything. You healed me, you conjured that barrier… “

She considered this for a second. “Yeah, anyone would do that-”

Muriel distinctly wanted to argue that that was _decidedly_ untrue but she was still talking and he never got the chance.

“Listen, I don’t like being a burden-” Something flashed in her eyes that was melancholic and Muriel cursed himself for noticing. She went to pat him on the arm but he flinched and she pulled back quickly, not wanting to overstep her boundaries. “If I can ever help just tell me. Okay?”

She went to her bag and quickly fished out a length of thin leather and quickly attached the bag of myrrh to it. Carefully she dropped it over her head so that it sat at her breastbone like some poor, rugged imitation of where a proper lady might wear a favored jewel. Muriel felt a burst of embarrassment rise in him. To his further mortification and outright alarm, she tugged the neck of her shirt open wide and dropped the pouch inside so that it sat just above her chest, directly against her skin and she gave it a gentle pat. “There. I know that magically imbued accessories tend to function more powerfully when they directly contact skin… although I guess that specifically applies more to enchanted gems. Not really sure about leather and herbs, honestly…”

If he had to pick _the exact moment_ he knew that he was likely never to be rid of Erin, it was right then. 


End file.
